“No one has more faith than we do in our country, in the Revolution, in what it has achieved, in the virtues of our people”.

“They left to us the example which has inspired our people --day after day, piece by piece, and idea upon idea-- to turn Cuba from a Spanish colony first and a humiliating imperialist domain later into the most independent and free nation on Earth; from a slavery society, full of injustices and inequalities, into the most fraternal and just country that the world has known.”

“(…) the smoking habit which is being reduced and will be reduced even more. Or at least anyone who smokes should do so at home or in some place where he or she is alone and not where 30, 40 or 50 people are gathered together”.

“It is the primary duty of the overburdened leaders of our complex world --among many other obligations and without forgetting hunger, poverty, underdevelopment, the diseases that decimate entire regions, the climate changes and other calamities-- to meditate and reflect on the causes and the sources of the dangerous pandemic of terrorism and to apply really effective methods to fight it.”

“Cuba has twice as many doctors per capita as all of the highest developed nations. No country has given, or is giving, more support to other peoples’ health care services, free of charge, than Cuba and no other has saved more lives. Thus, our people do not have, nor could it have, any inclination to become a bio-weapons producer.”

"Today we are striving to perfect the work accomplished up until now, and proceeding on the basis of entirely new ideas and concepts. Today we are seeking for what should be and will be, in our judgment, an educational system that increasingly corresponds to the equality, full justice, self-esteem and moral and social needs of all people in the type of society that Cubans have decided to build."

"The methods, discipline and rigor of the National Ballet School have produced formidable artists".

“And our people will have enough awareness to know what the world is all about, and what is happening in the world. That is why history is so important, the history of our country, so that they know where things are happening and what the roots were of what our people are doing today. And throughout the world, because communications truly have become globalized in the world today, everything, the economy, neoliberal globalization has been imposed and has led them to the current situation.”

“A country with a general, all round education, which includes not only professional learning but also knowledge about science, arts and humanities. We will be [the best-educated people in the world] by a broad margin and in a short space of time, — in some things we already are the best-educated country in the world”.

“We take comfort in our conviction that the circumstances preventing our cooperation in many fields where it could be useful will not last forever.”

 

“Differences related to the rich and poor countries, both between them and within them, have grown and deepened; in other words, there is an ever wider gap in the distribution of wealth, the greatest scourge of our era, resulting in poverty, hunger, ignorance, disease and unbearable pain and suffering for countless human beings”.

“Perhaps the most useful contribution to the struggle for a better world that we can make through our modest efforts will be to demonstrate how much can be done with so little, if all of the human and material resources of a society are put at the service of the people.”